Disordered Thinking
by Mariagoner
Summary: The truly fearful thing about madness is that nobody is immune. Nobody. A new series of drabbles that explores the madness of nearly everyone in Ivalice. Will contain almost all of the cast of the game eventually.
1. ObsessiveCompulsive

It took me forever and a day but I finally managed to finish the first set of drabbles for the madness drabble challenge I issued a while back. And god help me, there will be further drabble/ficlet/what-have-you posts coming up. God help us all, really.

And comments, corrections and criticism are, as always, completely welcome and loved! After all, a little encouragement never fails to add a bit of inspiration... I'm especially interesting in knowing what ficlet you liked the most of the three below. If nothing else, it'd be helpful in writing these in the future.

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**Title: Disordered Thinking, Part 1**

**Fandom: Final Fantasy XII**

**Characters: Noah & Basch**

**Rating: PG-13**

**Summary: The truly fearful thing about madness is that nobody is immune. **_**Nobody.**_

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**I. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Gabranth for Trancekuja**

_[Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a psychiatric disorder most commonly characterized by a subject's obsessive, distressing, intrusive thoughts and related compulsions (tasks or "rituals") which attempt to neutralize the obsessions._

All his life, Noah's always been second to his own twin.

Sometimes, Noah wonders if such a fate had always been marked to him. It couldn't have been mere chance, after all, that made Basch the beloved first-born and Noah the ill-favored lump that was thrown in to the world after him. It couldn't have been a simple coincidence that his mother had always smiled more brightly at the sight of one face than another, or that his father's fingers had always lingered more at Basch's shoulders than at his. It couldn't have been mere luck that made Basch's sword swings stronger, Basch's tactics at war better, Basch's honor so much more difficult for the bastards around them both to warp and bend.

It had to have been fate that did such a thing. Damn it, damn it, _damn it_.

Noah's lagged behind his brother almost all his life and when they were young, Basch had always had a way of rendering Noah second-best. No matter what they did, as both children and young men, Basch always had a way of exceeding and even out-stripping him. And even now, within his cocoon in Arcades, Noah sometimes thinks despite himself that maybe his parents _were_ right-- maybe Basch _did_ deserve all the love and all the glory, all the adoration that they would always harbor for him…

No matter how loudly Basch's footsteps had rung in their ears as he had turned and walked away from all of them.

Noah has never been the sort to leave unless he had to. Basch has never been the sort to stay unless Noah bound him.

And till the end of their lives, despite it all, Basch had always been the one that their parents had loved best.

But now, so many years after the fall of Landis, it's finally Noah who's out-stripped his brother and reaped all the glory that deflecting the winning side can offer a twin with superior wits. And whenever thoughts of how little he's truly worth chase him again…

_(and all Noah can see is the face of his father, the face of his mother, beaming at Basch and looking blankly at him, he so ill favored, he so misshapen, so undeserving, pathetic and cowardly, the ghostly reflection of the better son sure to outlast him, sure to overlay and overtake all that had ever been given to him)_

…Noah always knows it's long past time to pay his brother the courtesy of another visit.


	2. Depression

Thank you so much for all the reviews, everyone! I've been crazy busy with grad school and planning my own wedding but times like this really makes this whole long fic-writing business worth it. Reviews are encouraging as all hell so I personally adore them. ;)

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**II. Depression, Vaan for Shuunka Shuutou**

Note: This ficlet slots into the Series: The Uses of Enchantment series.

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_[Clinical depression is a state of intense sadness, melancholia or despair that has advanced to the point of being disruptive to an individual's social functioning and/or activities of daily living._

Whenever he goes to visit her now, she always tells him to open the curtains.

Penelo always does it as imperiously as she can, which is how she's done most things ever since Larsa went around the bend at age 12, developed severe psychological problems and actually married her seriously bossy rear. Of course, nowadays, with her strength waning and her weight hovering somewhere below ninety pounds, even the Empress of Archadia's best attempts at imperialism is half-hearted at best. But when she tells him to open the curtains to her room, Vaan always does it quickly, no matter how little actual power there is behind her eyebrow raising and hand waving now.

"It's as though," Penelo always says afterwards with a sigh, "they think I'm _already _dead and need an impromptu funeral set up right here. It's the most depressing thing in the world, honestly."

"You look it," Vaan snaps back, just to see her smile. "Woman, you're all skin and bones. Don't you ever _eat_?"

In turn, Penelo will simply stare angelically at the ceiling and tell him that Larsa's advanced age makes much of her previous diet hard to obtain on a regular basis. And afterwards, she will laugh and laugh and laugh at the expression of horror that comes over his face at the very thought of the royalty in Archades ever having a sex life, no matter how many heirs they've produced as of yet.

This is how it's always like nowadays, with the two of them. That's how it always is when he visits her in her bride bed, her child bed, her sick bed, her eventual death bed, when he makes the long trip to Archades just to be at her side and watch her fight and laugh and speak and sleep, for all the rest of the days that she has left. And even as Vaan tucks her elaborate blankets around her after she falls to dreams and counts every ragged breath she takes, he wonders just how long either of them can keep going on as they have been for the last few months.

He is sixty two years old and the best friend, most devious enemy and greatest sky partner he has ever had is dying. And when she is gone, the last link to his life on the streets of Rabanastre will sever and the last chain of anchoring him to his own past will break and all the world will lose something it will never have a chance of holding yet again.


End file.
